The Secret Ingredient Is Love
by ThievesOverBullies
Summary: A/U-Robin Locksley is in a bit of a jam. Regina Mills is someone who might be able to give him some lessons to help him out. One shot.


_**(A/N-Special thanks to Bekki boo for beta reading this. Dedicated to a very special Lady as today is her birthday.)**_

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Regina Mills had just arrived at her restaurant and was about to get busy planning next week's schedule. It was a family owned business, handed down to Regina by her dear Grams who had started Second Chance's over forty years ago. She had just started composing the menu, when all thought left her head with a glance out the window. She ducked behind the bar and then sighed at how ridiculous she was. Hiding because Robin Locksley was coming here? Heck yeah, she was.

He had something in his hand, she noticed, as she finally got back up. Was that a checkbook? Maybe he wanted to wave his money around to secure a Saturday night reservation for Second Chance's best table, the one that faced the Ever Green River in the distance. As she started towards the door, she passed a table that just the night before a couple had become engaged.

Regina's experience with marriage proposals at that table was limited to old daydreams and nightly fantasies about Robin Locksley on one knee—ha. As if Robin would propose the traditional way. He'd buy a plane and skywrite a proposal. He'd spell it out in rocks down by the clearing in front of the woods. He'd grab her hand, look her deeply in the eye, see everything she felt and whisk her away to Vegas for a quick ceremony in the Elvis Presley wedding chapel.

Sometimes she thought her cooking skills were all she had going for her in the romance department. Way to a man's heart and all that. As if her ability to make a barbecue sauce to rival her gram's had gotten her anywhere but right where she was, standing in a kitchen.

Robin removed his sunglasses as he neared the front door of the restaurant. He opened the door and walked inside, looking around, as he spotted her, surprise crossed his features; and then he held up his hand with something of a nod.

"Regina," he said, unease clear.

She let out the breath she was holding. And wondered if he even remembered their night—just a precious hour, if that—in the loft of the barn on his family's ranch. Given what he'd done the next day, she'd bet her meager savings he'd forgotten the minute she left that night. "Hello, Robin."

He seemed distracted, as though there was something weighing on his mind. She knew that look of his well. She wanted to reach out and smooth the worry lines on his forehead the way she once had done, but she couldn't, of course. He took a deep breath, clearly bracing himself to continue.

He glanced at his watch and said, "Is your grandmother here? I need to sign up for her cooking class that starts tomorrow." So much for pleasantries. For anything resembling regret for how he'd treated her.

Regina couldn't help staring at him, her gaze going to those dimples. The man was impossibly good-looking, so good-looking she almost missed what he said.

"You want to sign up for the cooking class?" she asked. Robin in a kitchen. She couldn't even imagine it. Her grandmother had been offering cooking classes every season in her country kitchen for as long as Regina could remember.

"Is there room in the class?" He held up the checkbook. "I'll pay double if it'll get me in."

Double? What was that about? "Actually, we had to cancel the spring session. My gram's not well and is getting lots of tests done." At the thought of her beloved grandmother, Rene, collapsing in the kitchen, the weight of a pan of grits suddenly too heavy for the fit seventy-five year old, Regina closed her eyes for a moment, worry and fear snaking their way inside. She should have been here. Instead she'd been hours away in New York, trying to make her life work—for seven years. She could feel the guilt flaming her cheeks and turned away.

"I'm sorry about your grandmother. A few months ago, I ran into her in the supermarket when I was buying a birthday cake for my son. I told her my attempt caved in on itself, and she told me to put the store cake back, that she'd bake one for me. I tried to tell her that wasn't necessary, but she insisted and asked what my son's favorite things were. The next morning, she brought over a cake in the shape of a tree, decorated with ice cream cones. Roland flipped. He still talks about her birthday cake."

That was Gram. Always helping, always going the extra mile. Regina smiled at her grandmother's kindness, but at his little boy's name, her chest tightened. Though she'd only been back to Storybrooke over the last few years for holidays and birthdays, she'd once run into Robin's heavily pregnant wife at the grocery store and another time she'd seen Robin with a toddler on his shoulders at a parade, a little boy with huge dark eyes and wisps of hair like his daddy's.

"Why do you want to take a cooking class?" she asked to change the subject.

He stepped to the side and looked around, everywhere but at her. "I need to learn some basics. Omelets, fried chicken, maybe chicken salad with the leftovers for sandwiches. That kind of thing. And biscuits like your grandmother makes."

She noticed he didn't answer the question. "Your wife could teach you that, I'm sure," she said like an idiot, the face of Marian Locksley pushing into her mind. Of all the beautiful young women in town, the guy of Regina's dreams had fallen for the meanest, the ringleader of the group back in high school that had teased and tormented her and made her feel ashamed of her scrawny figure back then and how foolish she'd been to even dare have a secret crush on a boy like Robin. Back then, Regina had had exactly two conversations with Robin, both making clear that the outlaw that rode his motorcycle all the time, and his hair slightly too long, was as complicated and kindhearted as he was absolutely gorgeous. But falling for Marian? Marrying her? She'd never gotten that. And she'd never gotten over it either.

A few months after her...moment with Robin in his barn, she'd happened on the bride and groom coming out of the church, their families throwing rice. He must have gotten her pregnant, she remembered meanly thinking, to marry her after just a few months of dating. Gram had brought her tissues and homemade fudge brownie ice cream, and by the end of their conversation Grams had convinced Regina to accept the scholarship she'd been offered to a culinary school in New York—her dream—rather than stay in town to help Gram with the restaurant. Maybe Regina would come back home, maybe she wouldn't, Gram had said. Follow your heart, wherever it leads you. She'd wanted to come back home, but then she'd seen pregnant Marian. Seen Robin with his little one and couldn't imagine watching the man she loved with another woman, a child. And so she'd stayed in New York, where she didn't belong.

"Marian was killed in a car accident over a year ago," Robin said, his gaze going to his watch.

Shame at how she'd remembered his late wife came over her. "I'm very sorry, Robin. For you and your son." Regina had heard through her grandmother that Robin's parents had died from smoke inhalation in a fire not too long after she went to cooking school. He'd lost his brother, his parents, his wife. So much loss at such a young age.

He held up his checkbook. "I made it out to Rene already. I realize you probably don't have a lot of time between the restaurant and seeing to your grandmother, but maybe you could squeeze in a lesson or two?"

Why was it so important that he learned how to make an omelet and a chicken salad sandwich?

She could help him out. "Hattie, Gram's assistant cook, could probably teach you," Regina said, realizing that she couldn't bear the thought of being alone with him in close quarters, reminded of the night they'd shared, how she'd almost given all of herself to him and how he'd taken up with Marian the next day.

The next day. All over each other on the flat-topped boulder near where she went to pick herbs every afternoon. Their rock. She'd seen them with her own eyes.

Regina turned away for a moment, chastising herself for how much it still stung, still hurt.

"Please, Regina. I'm desperate."

"Desperate to learn to make biscuits?" she snapped before she could catch herself. Seven years ago was seven years ago. You're not eighteen and he's not nineteen. He's a widower, for Pete's sake. A single father. And for some reason, he is desperate to learn to make biscuits.

He frowned as he stared at her. "Will you teach me to cook or not?" The hat went back on. "You can condense the class if you want, an hour a few times a week for two weeks, early in the morning before opening or after closing—whenever's convenient." He took a pen from his back pocket, filled out another check, and held it out to her. "A thousand dollars. Please, Regina."

A thousand dollars? Oh, heck. That she couldn't turn down. You'll get through it, she told herself. You'll show him how to roast a chicken and cut up potatoes and that'll be that. No big whoop. "The restaurant is closed on Mondays, so we might as well take advantage of using the kitchen. Be here at six sharp tomorrow. I'll assume you don't have your own apron."

His shoulders relaxed and he handed her the check. "Actually, I do."

"Normally I wouldn't take this," she said, tucking the check in the back pocket of her jeans. "But things have been slow around here for the past few months since Gram got sick and didn't tell anyone. We could use the money."

He nodded and turned to leave.

"You don't mind that you're not getting Gram as your cooking teacher?" she asked. Have you thought about me once in all these years? Why did you call a halt to...things that night?

She knew why—thought she did anyway. Because it had dawned on him that he was getting hot and heavy with a nobody like her. She'd just happened to be in the right place at the right time. He'd been grief-stricken over his brother's death and out of his mind; she'd been there with whatever comfort he'd needed. Then he must have opened his eyes and seen a too-skinny girl, he'd never even noticed before, realized he'd been about to make love to her, sent her home and taken up with Marian. Regina doubted that Robin even remembered her at all.

He turned back and held her gaze so intensely she had to look away. "I still think about that chili con carne you made me the day my brother died. I've never forgotten how good it was or how it actually managed to distract me for a minute from my grief. And you were how old, barely eighteen?"

So he did remember. An image pushed into her mind, of finding him sitting atop that big rock near the field where her gram had always sent her to collect chickweed and henbit, his arms wrapped around his knees, his head down, his back shaking. Robin Locksley, sobbing, his older brother, an army soldier, killed in Afghanistan.

"Anyway," she said, unable to stop the memory of the way he'd held her seven years ago in the barn where he'd hidden out during most of the sympathy visits to his parents' house. He'd eaten the chili and they'd talked some, and she'd known he wanted to say thank you but couldn't speak, wanted comfort but couldn't ask for it, so he'd just hugged her tightly and held on for a full minute, Regina gripping his shoulders. He'd kissed her then, her knees actually buckling from the surprise, the sensation, the dream, and he'd picked her up and laid her down on the blanket in the straw.

She shook herself out of the memory and thought back to what he said, about her chili distracting him from his grief. Was that why he wanted to learn to cook? To help with his loss of his late wife? He didn't look sad. If anything, he looked...worried. He hadn't said he wanted to learn to cook. He said he needed to. There was a story there, she'd bet on it.

"See you tomorrow at six."

Regina watched him head back up the path and get into his silver SUV. What the heck had she just agreed to?

At five-thirty on Monday, Robin took a bite of the homemade chicken tenders he'd cooked for his son and shook his head. What the blast was he doing wrong? He'd followed the recipe he found online. Put chicken in beaten egg, coat with flour, then fry in oil in a pan. What was so hard? Why didn't it taste like the chicken he had last week at Second Chance's? It didn't even come close to the chicken dinners Marian had served, which, granted, were nuggets from a big bag in the freezer. He'd relied on frozen, takeout and hot dogs too often. No more. But proof that he needed a cooking teacher was on the plate in front of him. And his son.

He looked over at six-year-old Roland sitting across from him at the dining room table in their ranch house, his heart clenching as always at how much he loved him, how precious he was, his dark ringlets bouncing on his narrow shoulders with every poke of his fork at the green beans he wasn't eating. He'd had four bites. According to Roland's pediatrician at his last checkup, that was perfectly normal for a six-year-old. He'd eaten two bites of the baked potato, which wasn't quite soft enough, even though he'd followed an online recipe to the letter—wrap in foil and bake for fifty minutes at 425 degrees—and then added some extra butter to make up for it. He'd eaten two bites of chicken. And he'd taken one sniff of a green bean and snuck it under the table to an always-hungry Bailey, their beagle.

"One more bite of chicken?" he said to Roland.

He smiled, the dimple that matched his popping out in his left cheek, his big, round brown eyes, just like his mother's. "Okay, Daddy."

He watched him pick up a piece of the chicken with his fingers and surreptitiously slide his hand under the table where he knew Bailey was waiting. "Roland Locksley," he chastised, but couldn't help the smile.

Hell, he didn't want to eat his tough, bland dinner either. He scooped up Roland from the table and held him tight, his arms around his neck the best feeling in the world. "You be a good boy for Miss Violet. She's going to watch you while I'm at a cooking class."

Regina Mills came to mind, curvy, with that porcelain skin and long, silky dark hair. He could still remember wrapping his hands in that hair, the cocoa-butter scent of it, the feel of her soft skin. The sight of her shyly taking off her sweater in the barn loft, the lacy white bra driving him mad with desire for her. If he could go back in time seven years ago, he'd have handled that night differently, wouldn't have let things have gone that far, no matter how badly he'd wanted things to have gone much, much further. Then again, if he could go back, there'd be no Roland. That wasn't anything he wanted to imagine.

"Will you learn to cook ice cream?" Roland asked, slipping Bailey another bite of chicken. Roland's favorite thing on earth—besides a tree to climb—was a hot-fudge sundae.

"I will," he said, a chill snaking up his spine as he remembered his last conversation with Anna, Marian's mother.

No young child should be having a hot fudge sundae at eleven o'clock in the morning! Anna had screeched at him two days ago. She'd barged in for "an impromptu visit to check on my grandchild," in her trademark silk pantsuit and heels, and didn't even say hello to Roland before asking Roland to hand over the bowl of ice cream and then dumping it in the sink.

Furious, Robin had told Roland as calmly as he could to go play in his room while he talked to Nana. The moment the girl left the room, Anna had stabbed her manicured finger at him and said, You listen to me, Locksley. You'd better start taking proper care of your son or Frank and I will have no choice but to petition for custody. We've given you plenty of time to adjust to being a single father. But it's constant hot dogs and candy. And now it's ice cream before lunch, which I have no doubt will be a fast-food burger."

How he'd held his temper was beyond him." I'm doing the best I can", anger—and shame—burning in his gut.

"Your best isn't good enough, now, is it?" she said. "And if you'd watch him more closely, he wouldn't have scrapes and marks all over his legs like some wild child."

Robin loved to watch his son race around the yard and the playground structure after Bailey, following the beagle down the slide. Yeah, Roland landed badly sometimes, and there were scrapes and cuts and bruises. When they played hide-and-seek, he always knew he'd find him hiding in the crab apple tree, so high up that sometimes it scared him. But Roland was happy and loved and cared for. He had the love part of fatherhood down pat; it was the rest he wasn't great at. He mangled meals and resorted to fast food too many times. Miss Violet was a great sitter, kind and patient, and lived just five minutes down the road, but she'd said she'd never been much of a cook and Robin had to leave meals for her to heat up for Roland.

"Get your act together, Robin Locksley, or I will see you in court." She'd turned and stalked to the front door.

His and Marian's marriage hadn't been good, and Marian had told him she was leaving permanently—and leaving Roland behind—just a day before the car accident that had taken her life. But preserving a good memory of Marian for his son was important to Robin, and no one, especially not Marian's mother, who had a history of slinging cruelty, would disparage his child's mother.

Marian had rolled her eyes and stormed out and Robin had needed to do something physical to get his anger out, so he'd taken Roland over to Miss Violet's for an hour and then ridden one of his horses along his vast property, mending and hammering his frustration out.

He couldn't lose Roland. He'd do whatever he had to keep him; which meant learning to cook. He'd tried hiring a housekeeper after Marian's death, but one woman had harshly scolded Roland for leaving his toys out in the playroom and made elaborate meals that Robin had told her neither he nor Roland wanted to eat, such as beef bourguignon. The next housekeeper forgot Roland was allergic to peanuts and made him some cookies with nuts in them which landed Roland in the emergency room with severe stomach pains.

He'd learn to cook.

What he wouldn't do was let himself fall for Regina—again. He was done with romance, done with relationships, done with disappointing people. And besides, things with Regina just cut too deep in too many ways. Where she was concerned, there was too much he wanted to forget.

Anyway, after the way he'd treated Regina seven years ago, he was surprised she hadn't slapped him yesterday.

Robin heard Miss Violet's car arrive and took Roland out to meet her, the fresh April air a relief from the smell of rubbery chicken.

Roland bounded over to his sitter, a tall woman in her early fifties with a long gray braid, jeans and sneakers for Roland's outdoor play, and a warm smile. "Miss Violet, come play."

Miss Violet smiled and followed after Roland, who pulled her by the hand. "You go ahead," Violet said to Robin

He hugged and kissed Roland goodbye, told Violet he'd pay her extra if she'd clean up the dinner dishes, which got him a wink and a sure thing, and then got in his SUV. Time to learn how not to screw up fried eggs.

"Robin Locksley wants to learn how to cook, doesn't he?" Gram had said that afternoon, taking a nibble of the potato chowder Regina had made her. "Teach him everything I taught you", Rene had added. "The tips and secrets. The things you can't learn by a recipe alone. I know he hurt you, Regina. But I've seen him around town with that little boy of his and it would melt the heart of Ouiser Boudreaux." Ouiser Boudreaux was the grumpiest person in town, an elderly widow who was always threatening to sic dog on kids for making too much noise at the bus stop across the street from her house.

Which made things worse for Regina. If Robin could get Ouiser Boudreaux to crack a smile, what would he do to her?

Regina put on her favorite yellow apron and glanced at the clock—ten minutes till Robin walked through the door.

She pulled the list she'd made from her jeans pocket. Breakfasts: cheese omelet, scrambled eggs, quiche Lorraine, French toast. Bacon. Biscuits with apple butter. Tonight's cooking lesson would be about breakfast. Regina was about to open the walk-in refrigerator for the eggs and milk and butter, then realized if Robin was paying her a thousand dollars to learn how to make an omelet and biscuits, he could probably use a tutorial about the ingredients themselves, what to buy, how to store them.

A rap sounded at the back door and Regina glanced out the window. There he was, right on time. She held up a hand and went to the door, taking a deep breath before she opened it.

"Got my apron," he said, clutching it in one hand. It was a red apron that had the words, watch me whip on them.

She smiled and held the door open for him, willing herself not to stare at him, not to look too closely at his handsome face or the way his broad shoulders filled the doorway. He wore a navy blue button up shirt and low-slung jeans. He'd filled out from the nineteen-year-old boy she'd known. He was tall then, but now he was muscular from years of ranch work. "Come on in."

Speak, Regina. She cleared her throat. "Since you said you want to learn the basics, I thought we'd start with breakfast—scrambled eggs, omelets, French toast, bacon."

"Roland loves scrambled eggs and French toast, and I love bacon, so all that sounds great."

"So, Roland is six?" she asked. Six. It just occurred to her that in all this time, all these years, of course he hadn't given Regina two thoughts. She'd been so focused on how he'd dropped her like a hot biscuit for Marian when she should have realized it had been fatherhood that wiped his memory of all that had come before. One hour in the hayloft in his parents' barn where they'd groped and kissed? How could that even register amid the birth of a baby, the first cold, the first steps, the first day of school? How could it register against daily life with sweet miracles in the form of a toothless smile or a child's pride at learning to read?

She'd been a dope to wonder these past seven years if he'd thought about her. Of course, he hadn't.

But that hadn't stopped her from tossing and turning for hours last night, remembering how it had felt to be in his arms, to be kissed so passionately by him. At around three in the morning, she'd made herself promise she wouldn't be sucked back in by his face, by his incredible body, by his...story. He had a story seven years ago. She'd responded and had her heart broken and her life set on a path she hadn't expected. She'd left her home, left her gram and had lived in a kind of emptiness, of going through the motions.

He had a story now. She might not be able to stop herself from responding; he was standing in her kitchen, after all, awaiting her help. But she would respond only so much, only so far. She wouldn't let him get to her, wouldn't let him affect her, wouldn't let him in.

Robin nodded and slipped on his apron. "I can't believe it, but yeah, he's six. He's in second grade and something of a math whiz."

"That's something I'll never be," Regina said. "Although I know my way around a measuring cup and my ounces and quarts and gallons." She eyed the clock. One minute after six. For a thousand dollars, he was expecting results, not chitchat. "So, I also thought I'd walk you through the ingredients. We're going to start with scrambled eggs." She went over to the counter and picked up a stack of papers she'd inserted into a folder. "I made you a folder of recipes," she said, handing it to him. "Find the one for scrambled eggs and bacon and tell me what we need."

He opened the folder and scanned it. "Got it." He held out a sheet and put the folder back on the counter. "Eggs, milk, butter, bacon."

She explained how the bacon would take longer to fry than the eggs needed to cook, so they should start with the bacon. She went over the different kinds of bacon to buy, how long to keep it, how to store it, and he jotted down notes on the recipe, listening intently to everything she said. She showed him different kinds of pans, from sauté to cast iron. A few minutes later he had single-file bacon beginning to sizzle in the pan, tongs at the ready.

"While that's cooking, let's get the eggs ready." She told him how many eggs to use for him and his son, how to crack them so the shells wouldn't land in the bowl, how to beat the eggs and for how long, how some people like to add a little milk and he could try it both ways, with or without, but she liked it with. A little salt and pepper and he was ready to pour the beaten eggs in the fry pan on the next burner.

The smell of frying bacon made her mouth water and she realized she hadn't eaten much today. By the time he was slowly stirring the eggs in the pan, she was ravenous. She had him turn the heat off the eggs and drain the bacon on paper towels, then transfer everything to two plates. After instructing him to grab a small handful of cherries from the basket on the counter and add it to the plate, they sat down at the round table by the window.

"Depending on how hungry you are, you can add toast or biscuits too," she said. "Well, dig in."

He glanced at his plate, then forked a bite of eggs into his mouth. "I made this? It's pretty good." He leaned back as though relieved. She wanted to ask again why he was paying a thousand dollars to learn to make a few basics, but as she stole a glance at him while he popped a cherry into his mouth, that mouth she'd fantasized about for at least three years of high school before he'd ever kissed her, she could see the hard set of his jaw, something inscrutable in his eyes. He didn't want questions, didn't want to talk. He wanted to learn to cook and was paying good money for it.

Okay, then.

She dragged her gaze off him and took a bite of eggs, then tasted a piece of bacon. "It's better than good. It's absolutely delicious." Nerves made her ramble on about how he could get the best tasting eggs from the farm stands in town, rather than from the supermarket. He did a lot of nodding in response and said maybe he'd get some chickens of his own, that his son would love that.

Aware that their knees were awfully close and had brushed together more than once, Regina couldn't take it and got up with the excuse that she could use some coffee.

"Ditto," he said. "Guess we were both hungry," he added, glancing at their empty plates. "I imagine you have your hands full, cooking for the restaurant and caring for your grandmother. I appreciate you taking me on."

As a student only.

"Well, we really need the money," she said pointedly, and he glanced at her. Don't follow up that comment, don't qualify, just move on to French toast. He doesn't need to know your business, that he hurt you so badly you wouldn't help him if you didn't have to. Which would be a lie. Of course, she'd help him.

A half hour later, on their second cup of coffee, they sat at the same spot, trying the French toast they'd made, the first bite with a sprinkle of cinnamon.

"Delicious," he said. "I wish I wasn't so full from all that bacon I ate."

She laughed. "Me too. But try a piece with cinnamon and a sprinkle of confectioners' sugar."

"Roland will love this," he said, swiping a bite in some maple syrup—which she quickly explained was the real thing and worth every penny.

They moved on to a western omelet, with Robin slicing and dicing vegetables—mushroom, green and red peppers and onions. He stood beside her at the island, slicing the mushrooms a bit too thick.

"Thinner," she said, moving his hand on the knife a bit to the left. "The mushrooms will sauté quicker and won't be too chunky in the omelet."

He glanced at her hand on his, and pulled away slightly. "Got it," he said.

Regina, you fool, she chastised herself, feeling like a total idiot. Hadn't Gram told her he had women throwing themselves at him since his wife had died? A gorgeous widower with a sweet little boy and a prosperous ranch brought out all kinds, Gram had said. Now he probably thought she was flirting. Grrr. Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment. Seven years in New York might have changed Regina from that young girl into a woman who knew her way around a little makeup and a blow dryer, but she was a jeans and T-shirt kind of gal and always would be and wore her long hair in a low ponytail, tool of the trade. Robin wasn't really attracted to her seven years ago, and with a wife like Marian, who'd worn push-up bras and high heels to the supermarket at ten in the morning, he wouldn't be attracted to her now. Especially now, when she smelled like bacon grease and cinnamon. Real sexy.

She just had a "duh" moment. His sudden interest in cooking was likely tied to his wife's recent passing. For the past year, he'd probably been responsible for feeding his son and maybe he'd burned a few breakfasts or bungled some dinners.

She moved to the other side of the counter. "You can slide those mushrooms and the onions in the pan," she said, showing him how to gently sauté them with a wooden spoon.

He nodded and glanced out the window as if all he really wanted to do was get out of here.

Unnerved and unsure what to do, what to say, Regina thought about launching into a discussion of how to properly store vegetables, but she could see something was wrong, that she'd crossed a line. For touching him? Maybe she should remind him that he'd crossed a line, that he'd touched her—ran his hands over her bra, kissed a line down her stomach to the waistband of her jeans. And then dumped her without a damned word the next day.

It doesn't matter, she reminded herself, a hollow feeling opening in her stomach. It was a long time ago. A lifetime ago for him. You're his cooking teacher, Regina. That's it.

"It's amazing how fast the holidays are coming up," Regina said. It was early November now.

They sat down at the table and he took a couple of bites of the omelet. "This is delicious," he said. "I really hope I can do this myself when you're not standing beside me. You're a good teacher, Regina." He took a long slug of his coffee, finishing it, then got up. "How's tomorrow after the restaurant closes for the lunch lesson? Could you come to the ranch? My son will be spending the night at his grandparents' house, so I'll have extra time and I like the idea of learning to cook on-site. But if it's too late, I can come here in the morning."

Alone with him at his house. At night. She cleared her throat. "Tomorrow after closing will be fine," she said. "I'll be over by nine-thirty. We close at nine, but I'll need to help clean up."

He nodded and seemed to want to say something but just smiled softly and left, twenty different thoughts scrambling around Regina's head. But the one that stood out was about how she'd feel being over at the Locksley Ranch. For the second time. I mean it's not like anything was going to happen like happened there before.

 _Right?_


End file.
